{"id":196,"date":"2002-09-01T00:26:33","date_gmt":"2002-09-01T03:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=196"},"modified":"2002-09-01T00:26:33","modified_gmt":"2002-09-01T03:26:33","slug":"a-thin-red-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=196","title":{"rendered":"A Thin Red Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he movie A Thin Red Line<\/a>, directed by Terrence Malick and based on the autobiographical novel of James Jones<\/a>
\n(1962), tells the tale of the Charlie Company involved in the battle
\naround Guadalcanal. Published around the time of Spielberg’s ‘Saving
\nPrivate Ryan’, the movie was grosly underrated and most of time seen as
\na ‘rip off’ of ‘Saving Private Ryan’. However, when the movie starts,
\nthe difference in approach is right there: the movie ‘A thin red line’
\nhas no pretentions. It’s confusing, particularly because of the
\nmonologues, flashes of the past and even random
\nimages of the flora and fauna and beloved.<\/p>\n

Where Spielberg bombs us directly with the violences of war, Malick
\nslowly builds up the tension: the marines we follow are slowly pulled
\ninto a circle of violence and cruelty of war. The signs slowly appear:
\nAmerican marines with cut off legs put on display by the Japanese. And
\nwhen one of the sergeants finally raises his arms to start the attack
\non a hill, it’s like watching the first 15 minutes of ‘Saving Private
\nRyan’.<\/p>\n

So where’s the difference? Malick effectively uses movie and sound
\nto build up this story: Spielberg throws in the first 15 minutes of war
\nand lets the movie end into a typical Hollywood <\/em>tearjerker.
\nThe actors in Thin Red Line are like anonymous soldiers (American and
\nJapanes) with seperate motives and actions. Without the heroic bombast
\nof ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Because at the end, surviving a war is not
\nabout doing heroic things but literally<\/em> about trying to
\nsave your own life. With some luck the life of the soldier next to you.<\/p>\n

 That message in this movie is obviously more clear than in
\n‘Saving Private Ryan’.<\/p>\n

No wonder why this movie won’t show up in your super-duper
\nDolby Surround cinema theatre. Most likely it will show up in your
\nlocal filmhouse. If you ever had to make a choice between ‘Saving
\nPrivate Ryan’ and ‘A Thin Red Line’, go for the latter. You don’t
\nneed to see a multimillion dollar movie to learn about the horrors of
\nwar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The movie A Thin Red Line, directed by Terrence Malick and based on the autobiographical novel of James Jones (1962), tells the tale of the Charlie Company involved in the battle around Guadalcanal. Published around the time of Spielberg’s ‘Saving … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}